


A Form of Dark Sea

by Yarpfish



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Dark God Ryan, Folklore, Gods AU, M/M, RageHappy, Sky Factory AU, Solar queen gavin, achievement hunter - Freeform, fairytale, minecraft au, rtah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 22:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15543516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yarpfish/pseuds/Yarpfish
Summary: Once upon a time, there was a tree.Just a tree, an oak, alone in the endless night sky, surrounded by stars.And, protected by its roots and shaded by its canopy, grew the gods.





	A Form of Dark Sea

Once upon a time, there was a tree.

Just a tree, an oak, alone in the endless night sky, surrounded by stars.

And, protected by its roots and shaded by its canopy, grew the gods.

They were young then. From the sturdy oak, they built planks, creating ground in the empty sea of the sky. They carved crooks and charmed tiny silkworms to make string. They built barrels and sieves and filled them with saplings and leaves to make earth and water. From the ground, they coaxed stone, clay, seeds, even diamond the stories say. Slowly, over the days and years, as a team they learnt, they grew and they began to build the world.

As time went on they changed. When they learned to create ground under their feet they thought of what to place upon it, what more that they could do. As they crafted they wanted to learn more, to experiment, to create new things never seen before. Their curiosities bubbled and began to shape them, molding them into personalities and honing them into skill.

One was the most skilled weaver of life, and we called him Harvest. They say that in his garden everything grew, and his corn grew tall as a mountain and rich as butter. He could bottle anything and it could bring a man back from the brink of death. They say that a towering redwood was the surest sign he’d blessed the land below, no harm could come to the peaceful under its watchful eye. We gave other meanings to the word Harvest, and he created traps to lure the monsters that would threaten their growing land and he would reap them, using their souls and their flesh to add to their inventory, feeding their lust to learn more through new things, wherever they were from.

They say the Warrior was a young god but an old being, old even in those days of the dawn of the universe. It is hard, of course, to be a god of war and strength when there is no battle, no enemy to fight. He was easily bored and disruptive in turn to the others. Yet he managed to walk between the realms, to speak to the elves and negotiate trade with them, walking in enchanted armour, imbued with elfen sprites to protect him as he patrolled the edge of their created earth for monsters. The fae gifted him with a wand of light and he created pretty decorations in their honour. They say the queen of the elves became curious about this warrior god and crossed realms to meet him. Story has it that they fell in love and were wed, and she became a goddess herself.

The Miner is an odd fellow, so it goes. In the first years he grew amongst his brothers, but he grew tired of that role. As the pace of innovation drove on, he withdrew. He did not care for how progress scored the land, how his trees were torn down or shorn of leaves, how the earth was hurt by the need for resource. Yet, he still wanted to support his brothers, and so in solitude he grew a field and crafted creatures that could lay beautiful eggs of precious minerals.

The Alchemist, who usually we speak of as the youngest, grew tired of the logic and the earth. Though he appreciated the skill as they learned to create more and more, he became more curious to the source of their powers than to the effect. He yearned to understand why they were special, what lent them the grace to breathe life and creation into rocks and dirt. He drew the gods’ blood to study, and their first devouts were more than willing, it was said, to feed his desire for life essence. Perhaps his experiments went too far, the fearful say, that he became tied to his altar that it gave him pain to be away. Perhaps this was a punishment, that even a god could be too curious, perhaps his own burning desire to know more left him unable to stay away. According to old drawings, a cat stood elegantly by and guarded the altar and so forth all cats are said to be blessed by him.

None knew the range or damage of their skills and so small was their land that they often disrupted the work of one another. All the gods needed power, something, some spark to keep basic processes running so they had the time to invent something new, sprites to sieve the earth for treasure. Two gods in particular were often at odds in those early days, and they fought bitterly for the crown of the God of Energy.

One turned to light and the elements, he learned to craft scripture in thin strands of water and lava, and he controlled the rain with a rod made of sunfire. He polished great mirrors to capture the light of the sun and in its glow he gave life.  
The other turned away from the unpredictability of nature, and threw himself into the logic of machines. He loved regularity, precision, and he made towering reactors powered as mysteriously as the Alchemist’s alter. He crafted computers for the others to attract their favour and built a throne of gold in the sky.

It is unclear who shed their pride first, the Sun Queen powerless at night, or the Dark God with his machines too freely gifted and too greedy for power than he could not feed them alone. But it is told that at the complaints of their fellows, the hand of friendship was extended.

Though the Dark King never understood the fuel that, no matter how powerful it was, only worked half the day cycle, he built a crown of sun energy in apology.  
The Solar Queen laughed and called him ridiculous.

We do not know why the God of Light began to craft trinkets of clay, though perhaps it was for the amusement of his friend, the Warrior. But it’s commonly told that he made a ring of gold, and the Dark King accepted.

~

As they had learnt to be gods, so in turn did they learn to be human.

From truce, came treaty, came understanding, came emotion, came affection and tenderness.

An elf and a warrior, a king and a queen.

Sometimes they fell, so they learnt to fly.

  
~

Depends where you’re from, the story you know of how people came to be. Maybe the Alchemist’s blood spilled and fell to the earth. Maybe Harvest’s seeds grew a new crop. Perhaps the elves dined too frequently on the the Warrior’s herbs and they became trapped in our realm. Perhaps the machines of the Architect were made too lifelike, too clever that they started thinking for themselves. Maybe we saw light and walked towards it to run away from the monsters and the dark.

The stranger ones swear we are were born from the eggs of the Miner.

~

The dancers in white cloth with their bells of silver stood stiff and straight against the men in black with chimes of gold. There is a silence made of noise. Of bright and cheap shin bells not chiming, of fiddles not played, of the clack of ribboned sticks not struck together. The silence of anticipation.

There is a crowd, of course, everyone went to see the morris men. It only happened once a year, they argued, was it not worth a watch, or at least the excuse for a fayre? It was silly...and yet, it was unthinkable to miss it. The crowd seemed to swell, far greater than the 150 villagers.

~

Folk understand now why winter gives way to spring, know about seasons and rotations and tilts. We know why we rotate the crops through the fields each year and we know that eating the rain is just symbolic.

But there’s no harm in bowing to the morris men and watching them dance the changing season.

~

There was much to celebrate this year, the almost unnaturally perfect weather leading to a bounty of crops for the winter stores and to sell at market. Moving through the crowd walked a young man with an easy smile dressed in green.

Sometimes in the bright hot sunshine his clothes caught the light and for half a second he seemed to burn bright gold.

~

The world of the gods has gone. There is no room for silly beliefs of rituals that make the sun smile and allow the rain to fall. Like the Alchemist before us, it is no longer enough to know that something works, now we must know why.

~

You would think that a man in rich dark reds and purples would be noticeable, but no one could quite recall his features. He stayed at the inn, it was sure, but his hair was flax and yet dark, short in some tales, but tied back in a dark silk ribbon in others. He was a wanderer, he said, and held himself as so but he was too clean, his clothes too new, his boots not worn in at all. He was quick to lend a skilled hand when anything broke, with uncalloused hands.

~

A religion became a festival and a festival became a party, even if no one can remember why.

Once, they’d learnt to fly to stop from falling.

Once, no man nor beast would dared to have approached.

But then they’d tried to live amongst the humans they’d created, and people were too good and too capable. Too soon, we didn’t need gods. We didn’t need them for explanation when we’d reasoned for the turn of the world or why life was the way it was. We created logic, and forced our world to fit it.

Where once we believed that they had created the world, so we crafted reality in our own imaginings.

Where once they had all stood and worked together, laughing, fighting, creating, now they were flung apart, screaming. Hands desperately reaching out to clasp flesh now ethereal as mist.  
Lonely, longing.

Noon sunshine cannot burn as the Midnight moon paints frost.

~

A stranger moves through the midwinter festival. He is dressed in black, but - no, not black, darkness. The gloom of an empty alley, the desire to look over your shoulder to see if someone is following and no one is there. The echo of the rattle and hiss and bubble of a factory machine.

Black ink eyes that did not exist met, for less than a thought, a gaze of molten gold. Invisible to the mortal heartbeats that surrounded them they saw each other, as they must every solstice, every equinox.

The King of Night bowed deeply, as he always did, hiding his nerves behind a stiff shield of formality and manners. As every time, the Solar Queen tried to hide his affectionate smile at the endearing awkwardness, and bowed in return.

Anticipation and trepidation was thick in the air as the King lifted his circlet of holly and ender and placed it upon the Sun God’s bowed head, where it melted like ice on hot glass into a crown of golden light and flowers. Only then did Summer look up, to meet eyes so mirror black they reflected his own inhumanly bright gaze, and reached out to touch Winter’s cheek. Like a breath unknowingly held released, there was relief as they both felt warm, solid flesh instead of cold smoke air. With dust motes dancing in the beams like fairies around them, they smiled, and the Dark God placed a kiss on his lover’s lips. As always, it was a chaste kiss, but overburdened with meaning - of love, and tenderness and of relief, but also of loneliness and regret and longing and the ghost of the pain of inevitable separation yet to come. It was never long enough, these brief moments where the could exist in the same plane and every touch was a sigh of happiness and a tarnish of goodbye.

They did not speak of it, for they both knew that the language they had given humans could not frame their ageless mourning.

The fiddle and the accordian began to play and dancers and crowd alike stood ready.

“It is your turn to lead” he said.

 

And as the morris begins around them, they danced in the spaces left in between.


End file.
